Currently, most concrete or asphalt pavements are painted or taped to form pavement markings, such as lane striping, turn arrows, etc. Due to poor wear resistance, these methods necessitate frequent renewal by reapplying the tape or re-painting the marking at considerable expense and effort.
Another method for marking pavements is to permanently attach a reflective element to the pavement. Because these reflectors typically protrude significantly above the surface of the pavement, they can not be used in areas where snow removal is required. Such protruding elements also disrupt the flat surface of the pavement.
Still another method involves creating an indentation on a soft concrete road surface, filling the indentation with white mortar and finishing the surface to provide pavement stripes or other marks.
In spite of these methods, there remains a need for an apparatus and a method for providing a long-lasting pavement marking. It would be advantageous to provide a method and apparatus which are efficient, and involve a minimal amount of manual labor. It would be advantageous to provide a method and apparatus for forming pavement markings which are highly mechanized and automated. It would be advantageous to provide a method and apparatus for forming pavement markings which include feedback control of various operations. It would be advantageous to provide a method and apparatus for forming pavement markings which are relatively quick in that a high amount of marking can be formed in a limited amount of time. It would be advantageous to provide a method and apparatus for forming pavement markings which are long lasting relative to paint and tape. It would be advantageous to provide a method and apparatus for forming pavement markings on a formed surface, such as cured concrete or compacted asphalt. It would advantageous to provide a method and apparatus for forming pavement markings which are applicable under various weather conditions. It would be advantageous to provide a method and apparatus for forming pavement markings which results in a relatively smooth pavement surface.